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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9768.txt b/9768.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6ccd91 --- /dev/null +++ b/9768.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2141 @@ +Project Gutenberg EBook, Alice, or The Mysteries, by Lytton, Book VI +#208 in our series by Edward Bulwer Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + + +Title: Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI + +Author: Edward Bulwer Lytton + +Release Date: January 2006 [EBook #9768] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 15, 2003] + + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ALICE, BY LYTTON, BOOK VI *** + + + + + +Produced by Dagny; and by David Widger + + + +Corrected and updated text and HTML PG Editions of the complete +11 volume set may be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9774/9774.txt + +https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9774/9774-h/9774-h.htm + + + + + +BOOK VI. + + "I will bring fire to thee--I reek not of the place." + --EURIPIDES: _Andromache_, 214. + + + +CHAPTER I. + + . . . THIS ancient city, + How wanton sits she amidst Nature's smiles! + + . . . Various nations meet, + As in the sea, yet not confined in space, + But streaming freely through the spacious streets.--YOUNG. + + . . . His teeth he still did grind, + And grimly gnash, threatening revenge in vain.--SPENSER. + +"PARIS is a delightful place,--that is allowed by all. It is delightful +to the young, to the gay, to the idle; to the literary lion, who likes to +be petted; to the wiser epicure, who indulges a more justifiable +appetite. It is delightful to ladies, who wish to live at their ease, +and buy beautiful caps; delightful to philanthropists, who wish for +listeners to schemes of colonizing the moon; delightful to the haunters +of balls and ballets, and little theatres and superb _cafes_, where men +with beards of all sizes and shapes scowl at the English, and involve +their intellects in the fascinating game of dominos. For these, and for +many others, Paris is delightful. I say nothing against it. But, for my +own part, I would rather live in a garret in London than in a palace in +the Chaussee d'Antin.--'Chacun a son mauvais gout.' + +"I don't like the streets, in which I cannot walk but in the kennel; I +don't like the shops, that contain nothing except what's at the window; I +don't like the houses, like prisons which look upon a courtyard; I don't +like the _beaux jardins_, which grow no plants save a Cupid in plaster; I +don't like the wood fires, which demand as many _petits soins_ as the +women, and which warm no part of one but one's eyelids, I don't like the +language, with its strong phrases about nothing, and vibrating like a +pendulum between 'rapture' and 'desolation;' I don't like the accent, +which one cannot get, without speaking through one's nose; I don't like +the eternal fuss and jabber about books without nature, and revolutions +without fruit; I have no sympathy with tales that turn on a dead jackass, +nor with constitutions that give the ballot to the representatives, and +withhold the suffrage from the people; neither have I much faith in that +enthusiasm for the _beaux arts_, which shows its produce in execrable +music, detestable pictures, abominable sculpture, and a droll something +that I believe the _French_ call POETRY. Dancing and cookery,--these are +the arts the French excel in, I grant it; and excellent things they are; +but oh, England! oh, Germany! you need not be jealous of your rival!" + +These are not the author's remarks,--he disowns them; they were Mr. +Cleveland's. He was a prejudiced man; Maltravers was more liberal, but +then Maltravers did not pretend to be a wit. + +Maltravers had been several weeks in the city of cities, and now he had +his apartments in the gloomy but interesting Faubourg St. Germain, all to +himself. For Cleveland, having attended eight days at a sale, and having +moreover ransacked all the curiosity shops, and shipped off bronzes and +cabinets, and Genoese silks and _objets de vertu_, enough to have half +furnished Fonthill, had fulfilled his mission, and returned to his villa. +Before the old gentleman went, he flattered himself that change of air +and scene had already been serviceable to his friend; and that time would +work a complete cure upon that commonest of all maladies,--an unrequited +passion, or an ill-placed caprice. + +Maltravers, indeed, in the habit of conquering, as well as of concealing +emotion, vigorously and earnestly strove to dethrone the image that had +usurped his heart. Still vain of his self-command, and still worshipping +his favourite virtue of Fortitude and his delusive philosophy of the calm +Golden Mean, he would not weakly indulge the passion, while he so sternly +fled from its object. + +But yet the image of Evelyn pursued,--it haunted him; it came on him +unawares, in solitude, in crowds. That smile so cheering, yet so soft, +that ever had power to chase away the shadow from his soul; that youthful +and luxurious bloom of pure and eloquent thoughts, which was as the +blossom of genius before its fruit, bitter as well as sweet, is born; +that rare union of quick feeling and serene temper, which forms the very +ideal of what we dream of in the mistress, and exact from the wife,--all, +even more, far more, than the exquisite form and the delicate graces of +the less durable beauty, returned to him, after every struggle with +himself; and time only seemed to grave, in deeper if more latent folds of +his heart, the ineradicable impression. + +Maltravers renewed his acquaintance with some persons not unfamiliar to +the reader. + +Valerie de Ventadour--how many recollections of the fairer days of life +were connected with that name! Precisely as she had never reached to his +love, but only excited his fancy (the fancy of twenty-two), had her image +always retained a pleasant and grateful hue; it was blended with no deep +sorrow, no stern regret, no dark remorse, no haunting shame. + +They met again. Madame de Ventadour was still beautiful, and still +admired,--perhaps more admired than ever; for to the great, fashion and +celebrity bring a second and yet more popular youth. But Maltravers, if +rejoiced to see how gently Time had dealt with the fair Frenchwoman, was +yet more pleased to read in her fine features a more serene and contented +expression than they had formerly worn. Valerie de Ventadour had +preceded her younger admirer through the "MYSTERIES of LIFE;" she had +learned the real objects of being; she distinguished between the Actual +and the Visionary, the Shadow and the Substance; she had acquired content +for the present, and looked with quiet hope towards the future. Her +character was still spotless; or rather, every year of temptation and +trial had given it a fairer lustre. Love, that might have ruined, being +once subdued, preserved her from all after danger. The first meeting +between Maltravers and Valerie was, it is true, one of some embarrassment +and reserve: not so the second. They did but once, and that slightly, +recur to the past, and from that moment, as by a tacit understanding, +true friendship between them dated. Neither felt mortified to see that +an illusion had passed away,--they were no longer the same in each +other's eyes. Both might be improved, and were so; but the Valerie and +the Ernest of Naples were as things dead and gone! Perhaps Valerie's +heart was even more reconciled to the cure of its soft and luxurious +malady by the renewal of their acquaintance. The mature and experienced +reasoner, in whom enthusiasm had undergone its usual change, with the +calm brow and commanding aspect of sober manhood, was a being so +different from the romantic boy, new to the actual world of civilized +toils and pleasures, fresh from the adventures of Eastern wanderings, and +full of golden dreams of poetry before it settles into authorship or +action! She missed the brilliant errors, the daring aspirations,--even +the animated gestures and eager eloquence,--that had interested and +enamoured her in the loiterer by the shores of Baiae, or amidst the +tomb-like chambers of Pompeii. For the Maltravers now before her--wiser, +better, nobler, even handsomer than of yore (for he was one whom manhood +became better than youth)--the Frenchwoman could at any period have felt +friendship without danger. It seemed to her, not as it really was, the +natural _development_, but the very _contrast_, of the ardent, variable, +imaginative boy, by whose side she had gazed at night on the moonlit +waters and rosy skies of the soft Parthenope! How does time, after long +absence, bring to us such contrasts between the one we remember and the +one we see! And what a melancholy mockery does it seem of our own vain +hearts, dreaming of impressions never to be changed, and affections that +never can grow cool! + +And now, as they conversed with all the ease of cordial and guileless +friendship, how did Valerie rejoice in secret that upon that friendship +there rested no blot of shame! and that she had not forfeited those +consolations for a home without love, which had at last settled into +cheerful nor unhallowed resignation,--consolations only to be found in +the conscience and the pride! + +M. de Ventadour had not altered, except that his nose was longer, and +that he now wore a peruque in full curl instead of his own straight hair. +But somehow or other--perhaps by the mere charm of custom--he had grown +more pleasing in Valerie's eyes; habit had reconciled her to his foibles, +deficiencies, and faults; and, by comparison with others, she could +better appreciate his good qualities, such as they were,--generosity, +good-temper, good-nature, and unbounded indulgence to herself. Husband +and wife have so many interests in common, that when they have jogged on +through the ups and downs of life a sufficient time, the leash which at +first galled often grows easy and familiar; and unless the _temper_, or +rather the disposition and the heart, of either be insufferable, what was +once a grievous yoke becomes but a companionable tie. And for the rest, +Valerie, now that sentiment and fancy were sobered down, could take +pleasure in a thousand things which her pining affections once, as it +were, overlooked and overshot. She could feel grateful for all the +advantages her station and wealth procured her; she could cull the roses +in her reach, without sighing for the amaranths of Elysium. + +If the great have more temptations than those of middle life, and if +their senses of enjoyment become more easily pampered into a sickly +apathy, so at least (if they can once outlive satiety) they have many +more resources at their command. There is a great deal of justice in the +old line, displeasing though it be to those who think of love in a +cottage, "'Tis best repenting in a coach and six!" If among the +Eupatrids, the Well Born, there is less love in wedlock, less quiet +happiness at home, still they are less chained each to each,--they have +more independence, both the woman and the man, and occupations and the +solace without can be so easily obtained! Madame de Ventadour, in +retiring from the mere frivolities of society--from crowded rooms, and +the inane talk and hollow smiles of mere acquaintanceship--became more +sensible of the pleasures that her refined and elegant intellect could +derive from art and talent, and the communion of friendship. She drew +around her the most cultivated minds of her time and country. Her +abilities, her wit, and her conversational graces enabled her not only to +mix on equal terms with the most eminent, but to amalgamate and blend the +varieties of talent into harmony. The same persons, when met elsewhere, +seemed to have lost their charm; under Valerie's roof every one breathed +a congenial atmosphere. And music and letters, and all that can refine +and embellish civilized life, contributed their resources to this gifted +and beautiful woman. And thus she found that the _mind_ has excitement +and occupation, as well as the heart; and, unlike the latter, the culture +we bestow upon the first ever yields us its return. We talk of education +for the poor, but we forget how much it is needed by the rich. Valerie +was a living instance of the advantages to women of knowledge and +intellectual resources. By them she had purified her fancy, by them she +had conquered discontent, by them she had grown reconciled to life and to +her lot! When the heavy heart weighed down the one scale, it was the +mind that restored the balance. + +The spells of Madame de Ventadour drew Maltravers into this charmed +circle of all that was highest, purest, and most gifted in the society of +Paris. There he did not meet, as were met in the times of the old +_regime_, sparkling abbes intent upon intrigues; or amorous old dowagers, +eloquent on Rousseau; or powdered courtiers, uttering epigrams against +kings and religions,--straws that foretold the whirlwind. Paul Courier +was right! Frenchmen are Frenchmen still; they are full of fine phrases, +and their thoughts smell of the theatre; they mistake foil for diamonds, +the Grotesque for the Natural, the Exaggerated for the Sublime: but still +I say, Paul Courier was right,--there is more honesty now in a single +_salon_ in Paris than there was in all France in the days of Voltaire. +Vast interests and solemn causes are no longer tossed about like +shuttlecocks on the battledores of empty tongues. In the +_bouleversement_ of Revolutions the French have fallen on their feet! + +Meeting men of all parties and all classes, Maltravers was struck with +the heightened tone of public morals, the earnest sincerity of feeling +which generally pervaded all, as compared with his first recollections of +the Parisians. He saw that true elements for national wisdom were at +work, though he saw also that there was no country in which their +operations would be more liable to disorder, more slow and irregular in +their results. The French are like the Israelites in the Wilderness, +when, according to a Hebrew tradition, every morning they seemed on the +verge of Pisgah, and every evening they were as far from it as ever. But +still time rolls on, the pilgrimage draws to its close, and the Canaan +must come at last! + +At Valerie's house, Maltravers once more met the De Montaignes. It was a +painful meeting, for they thought of Cesarini when they met. + +It is now time to return to that unhappy man. Cesarini had been removed +from England when Maltravers quitted it after Lady Florence's death; and +Maltravers had thought it best to acquaint De Montaigne with all the +circumstances that had led to his affliction. The pride and the honour +of the high-spirited Frenchman were deeply shocked by the tale of fraud +and guilt, softened as it was; but the sight of the criminal, his awful +punishment, merged every other feeling in compassion. Placed under the +care of the most skilful practitioners in Paris, great hopes of +Cesarini's recovery had been at first entertained. Nor was it long, +indeed, before he appeared entirely restored, so far as the external and +superficial tokens of sanity could indicate a cure. He testified +complete consciousness of the kindness of his relations, and clear +remembrance of the past: but to the incoherent ravings of delirium, an +intense melancholy, still more deplorable, succeeded. In this state, +however, he became once more the inmate of his brother-in-law's house; +and though avoiding all society, except that of Teresa, whose +affectionate nature never wearied of its cares, he resumed many of his +old occupations. Again he appeared to take delight in desultory and +unprofitable studies, and in the cultivation of that luxury of solitary +men, "the thankless muse." By shunning all topics connected with the +gloomy cause of his affliction, and talking rather of the sweet +recollections of Italy and childhood than of more recent events, his +sister was enabled to soothe the dark hour, and preserve some kind of +influence over the ill-fated man. One day, however, there fell into his +hands an English newspaper, which was full of the praises of Lord +Vargrave; and the article in lauding the peer referred to his services as +the commoner Lumley Ferrers. + +This incident, slight as it appeared, and perfectly untraceable by his +relations, produced a visible effect on Cesarini; and three days +afterwards he attempted his own life. The failure of the attempt was +followed by the fiercest paroxysms. His disease returned in all its +dread force: and it became necessary to place him under yet stricter +confinement than he had endured before. Again, about a year from the +date now entered upon, he had appeared to recover; and again he was +removed to De Montaigne's house. His relations were not aware of the +influence which Lord Vargrave's name exercised over Cesarini; in the +melancholy tale communicated to them by Maltravers, that name had not +been mentioned. If Maltravers had at one time entertained some vague +suspicions that Lumley had acted a treacherous part with regard to +Florence, those suspicions had long since died away for want of +confirmation; nor did he (nor did therefore the De Montaignes) connect +Lord Vargrave with the affliction of Cesarini. De Montaigne himself, +therefore, one day at dinner, alluding to a question of foreign politics +which had been debated that morning in the Chamber, and in which he +himself had taken an active part, happened to refer to a speech of +Vargrave upon the subject, which had made some sensation abroad, as well +as at home. Teresa asked innocently who Lord Vargrave was; and De +Montaigne, well acquainted with the biography of the principal English +statesmen, replied that he had commenced his career as Mr. Ferrers, and +reminded Teresa that they had once been introduced to him in Paris. +Cesarini suddenly rose and left the room; his absence was not noted, for +his comings and goings were ever strange and fitful. Teresa soon +afterwards quitted the apartment with her children, and De Montaigne, who +was rather fatigued by the exertions and excitement of the morning, +stretched himself in his chair to enjoy a short _siesta_. He was +suddenly awakened by a feeling of pain and suffocation,--awakened in time +to struggle against a strong grip that had fastened itself at his throat. +The room was darkened in the growing shades of the evening; and, but for +the glittering and savage eyes that were fixed on him, he could scarcely +discern his assailant. He at length succeeded, however, in freeing +himself, and casting the intended assassin on the ground. He shouted for +assistance; and the lights borne by the servants who rushed into the room +revealed to him the face of his brother-in-law. Cesarini, though in +strong convulsions, still uttered cries and imprecations of revenge; he +denounced De Montaigne as a traitor and a murderer! In the dark +confusion of his mind, he had mistaken the guardian for the distant foe, +whose name sufficed to conjure up the phantoms of the dead, and plunge +reason into fury. + +It was now clear that there was danger and death in Cesarini's disease. +His madness was pronounced to be capable of no certain and permanent +cure; he was placed at a new asylum (the superintendents of which were +celebrated for humanity as well as skill), a little distance from +Versailles, and there he still remained. Recently his lucid intervals +had become more frequent and prolonged; but trifles that sprang from his +own mind, and which no care could prevent or detect, sufficed to renew +his calamity in all its fierceness. At such times he required the most +unrelaxing vigilance, for his madness ever took an alarming and ferocious +character; and had he been left unshackled, the boldest and stoutest of +the keepers would have dreaded to enter his cell unarmed, or alone. + +What made the disease of the mind appear more melancholy and confirmed +was, that all this time the frame seemed to increase in health and +strength. This is not an uncommon case in instances of mania--and it is +generally the worst symptom. In earlier youth, Cesarini had been +delicate even to effeminacy; but now his proportions were enlarged, his +form, though still lean and spare, muscular and vigorous,--as if in the +torpor which usually succeeded to his bursts of frenzy, the animal +portion gained by the repose or disorganization of the intellectual. +When in his better and calmer mood--in which indeed none but the +experienced could have detected his malady--books made his chief delight. +But then he complained bitterly, if briefly, of the confinement he +endured, of the injustice be suffered; and as, shunning all companions, +he walked gloomily amidst the grounds that surrounded that House of Woe, +his unseen guardians beheld him clenching his hands, as at some visionary +enemy, or overheard him accuse some phantom of his brain of the torments +he endured. + +Though the reader can detect in Lumley Ferrers the cause of the frenzy, +and the object of the imprecation, it was not so with the De Montaignes, +nor with the patient's keepers and physicians; for in his delirium he +seldom or never gave name to the shadows that he invoked,--not even to +that of Florence. It is, indeed, no unusual characteristic of madness to +shun, as by a kind of cunning, all mention of the names of those by whom +the madness has been caused. It is as if the unfortunates imagined that +the madness might be undiscovered if the images connected with it were +unbetrayed. + +Such, at this time, was the wretched state of the man, whose talents had +promised a fair and honourable career, had it not been the wretched +tendency of his mind, from boyhood upward, to pamper every unwholesome +and unhallowed feeling as a token of the exuberance of genius. De +Montaigne, though he touched as lightly as possible upon this dark +domestic calamity in his first communications with Maltravers, whose +conduct in that melancholy tale of crime and woe had, he conceived, been +stamped with generosity and feeling, still betrayed emotions that told +how much his peace had been embittered. + +"I seek to console Teresa," said he, turning away his manly head, "and to +point out all the blessings yet left to her; but that brother so beloved, +from whom so much was so vainly expected,--still ever and ever, though +she strives to conceal it from me, this affliction comes back to her, and +poisons every thought! Oh, better a thousand times that he had died! +When reason, sense, almost the soul, are dead, how dark and fiend-like is +the life that remains behind! And if it should be in the blood--if +Teresa's children--dreadful thought!" + +De Montaigne ceased, thoroughly overcome. + +"Do not, my dear friend, so fearfully exaggerate your misfortune, great +as it is; Cesarini's disease evidently arose from no physical +conformation,--it was but the crisis, the development, of a +long-contracted malady of mind, passions morbidly indulged, the reasoning +faculty obstinately neglected; and yet too he may recover. The further +memory recedes from the shock he has sustained, the better the chance +that his mind will regain its tone." + +De Montaigne wrung his friend's hand. + +"It is strange that from you should come sympathy and comfort!--you whom +he so injured; you whom his folly or his crime drove from your proud +career, and your native soil! But Providence will yet, I trust, redeem +the evil of its erring creature, and I shall yet live to see you restored +to hope and home, a happy husband, an honoured citizen. Till then, I +feel as if the curse lingered upon my race." + +"Speak not thus. Whatever my destiny, I have recovered from that wound; +and still, De Montaigne, I find in life that suffering succeeds to +suffering, and disappointment to disappointment, as wave to wave. To +endure is the only philosophy; to believe that we shall live again in a +brighter planet, is the only hope that our reason should accept from our +desires." + + + +CHAPTER II. + + MONSTRA evenerunt mihi: + Introit in aedes ater alienus canis, + Anguis per impluvium decidit de tegulis, + Gallina cecinit!*--TERENCE. + + * "Prodigies have occurred: a strange black dog came into the house; + a snake glided from the tiles, through the court; the hen crowed." + +WITH his constitutional strength of mind, and conformably with his +acquired theories, Maltravers continued to struggle against the latest +and strongest passion of his life. It might be seen in the paleness of +his brow, and that nameless expression of suffering which betrays itself +in the lines about the mouth, that his health was affected by the +conflict within him; and many a sudden fit of absence and abstraction, +many an impatient sigh, followed by a forced and unnatural gayety, told +the observant Valerie that he was the prey of a sorrow he was too proud +to disclose. He compelled himself, however, to take, or to affect, an +interest in the singular phenomena of the social state around +him,--phenomena that, in a happier or serener mood, would indeed have +suggested no ordinary food for conjecture and meditation. + +The state of _visible transition_ is the state of nearly all the +enlightened communities in Europe. But nowhere is it so pronounced as in +that country which may be called the Heart of European Civilization. +There, all to which the spirit of society attaches itself appears broken, +vague, and half developed,--the Antique in ruins, and the New not formed. +It is, perhaps, the only country in which the Constructive principle has +not kept pace with the Destructive. The Has Been is blotted out; the To +Be is as the shadow of a far land in a mighty and perturbed sea.* + + * The reader will remember that these remarks were written long + before the last French Revolution, and when the dynasty of Louis + Philippe was generally considered most secure. + +Maltravers, who for several years had not examined the progress of modern +literature, looked with mingled feelings of surprise, distaste, and +occasional and most reluctant admiration, on the various works which the +successors of Voltaire and Rousseau have produced, and are pleased to +call the offspring of Truth united to Romance. + +Profoundly versed in the mechanism and elements of those masterpieces of +Germany and England, from which the French have borrowed so largely while +pretending to be original, Maltravers was shocked to see the monsters +which these Frankensteins had created from the relics and the offal of +the holiest sepulchres. The head of a giant on the limbs of a dwarf, +incongruous members jumbled together, parts fair and beautiful,--the +whole a hideous distortion! + +"It may be possible," said he to De Montaigne, "that these works are +admired and extolled; but how they can be vindicated by the examples of +Shakspeare and Goethe, or even of Byron, who redeemed poor and +melodramatic conceptions with a manly vigour of execution, an energy and +completeness of purpose, that Dryden himself never surpassed, is to me +utterly inconceivable." + +"I allow that there is a strange mixture of fustian and maudlin in all +these things," answered De Montaigne; "but they are but the windfalls of +trees that may bear rich fruit in due season; meanwhile, any new school +is better than eternal imitations of the old. As for critical +vindications of the works themselves, the age that produces the phenomena +is never the age to classify and analyze them. We have had a deluge, and +now new creatures spring from the new soil." + +"An excellent simile: they come forth from slime and mud,--fetid and +crawling, unformed and monstrous. I grant exceptions; and even in the +New School, as it is called, I can admire the real genius, the vital and +creative power of Victor Hugo. But oh, that a nation which has known a +Corneille should ever spawn forth a -----! And with these rickety and +drivelling abortions--all having followers and adulators--your Public can +still bear to be told that they have improved wonderfully on the day when +they gave laws and models to the literature of Europe; they can bear to +hear ----- proclaimed a sublime genius in the same circles which sneer +down Voltaire!" + +Voltaire is out of fashion in France, but Rousseau still maintains his +influence, and boasts his imitators. Rousseau was the worse man of the +two; perhaps he was also the more dangerous writer. But his reputation +is more durable, and sinks deeper into the heart of his nation; and the +danger of his unstable and capricious doctrines has passed away. In +Voltaire we behold the fate of all writers purely destructive; their uses +cease with the evils they denounce. But Rousseau sought to construct as +well as to destroy; and though nothing could well be more absurd than his +constructions, still man loves to look back and see even delusive +images--castles in the air--reared above the waste where cities have +been. Rather than leave even a burial-ground to solitude, we populate it +with ghosts. + +By degrees, however, as he mastered all the features of the French +literature, Maltravers become more tolerant of the present defects, and +more hopeful of the future results. He saw in one respect that that +literature carried with it its own ultimate redemption. + +Its general characteristic--contradistinguished from the literature of +the old French classic school--is to take the _heart_ for its study; to +bring the passions and feelings into action, and let the Within have its +record and history as well as the Without. In all this our contemplative +analyst began to allow that the French were not far wrong when they +contended that Shakspeare made the fountain of their inspiration,--a +fountain which the majority of our later English Fictionists have +neglected. It is not by a story woven of interesting incidents, relieved +by delineations of the externals and surface of character, humorous +phraseology, and every-day ethics, that Fiction achieves its grandest +ends. + +In the French literature, thus characterized, there is much false +morality, much depraved sentiment, and much hollow rant; but still it +carries within it the germ of an excellence, which, sooner or later, must +in the progress of national genius arrive at its full development. +Meanwhile, it is a consolation to know that nothing really immoral is +ever permanently popular, or ever, therefore, long deleterious; what is +dangerous in a work of genius cures itself in a few years. We can now +read "Werther," and instruct our hearts by its exposition of weakness and +passion, our taste by its exquisite and unrivalled simplicity of +construction and detail, without any fear that we shall shoot ourselves +in top-boots! We can feel ourselves elevated by the noble sentiments of +"The Robbers," and our penetration sharpened as to the wholesale +immorality of conventional cant and hypocrisy, without any danger of +turning banditti and becoming cutthroats from the love of virtue. +Providence, that has made the genius of the few in all times and +countries the guide and prophet of the many, and appointed Literature as +the sublime agent of Civilization, of Opinion, and of Law, has endowed +the elements it employs with a divine power of self-purification. The +stream settles of itself by rest and time; the impure particles fly off, +or are neutralized by the healthful. It is only fools that call the +works of a master-spirit immoral. There does not exist in the literature +of the world one _popular_ book that is immoral two centuries after it is +produced. For, in the heart of nations, the False does not live so long; +and the True is the Ethical to the end of time. + +From the literary Maltravers turned to the political state of France his +curious and thoughtful eye. He was struck by the resemblance which this +nation--so civilized, so thoroughly European--bears in one respect to the +despotisms of the East: the convulsions of the capital decide the fate of +the country; Paris is the tyrant of France. He saw in this inflammable +concentration of power, which must ever be pregnant with great evils, one +of the causes why the revolutions of that powerful and polished people +are so incomplete and unsatisfactory, why, like Cardinal Fleury, system +after system, and Government after Government-- + + . . . "floruit sine fructu, + Defloruit sine luctu."* + + * "Flourished without fruit, and was destroyed without regret." + +Maltravers regarded it as a singular instance of perverse ratiocination, +that, unwarned by experience, the French should still persist in +perpetuating this political vice; that all their policy should still be +the policy of Centralization,--a principle which secures the momentary +strength, but ever ends in the abrupt destruction of States. It is, in +fact, the perilous tonic, which seems to brace the system, but drives the +blood to the head,--thus come apoplexy and madness. By centralization +the provinces are weakened, it is true,--but weak to assist as well as to +oppose a government, weak to withstand a mob. Nowhere, nowadays, is a +mob so powerful as in Paris: the political history of Paris is the +history of snobs. Centralization is an excellent quackery for a despot +who desires power to last only his own life, and who has but a +life-interest in the State; but to true liberty and permanent order +centralization is a deadly poison. The more the provinces govern their +own affairs, the more we find everything, even to roads and post-horses, +are left to the people; the more the Municipal Spirit pervades every vein +of the vast body, the more certain may we be that reform and change must +come from universal opinion, which is slow, and constructs ere it +destroys,--not from public clamour, which is sudden, and not only pulls +down the edifice but sells the bricks! + +Another peculiarity in the French Constitution struck and perplexed +Maltravers. This people so pervaded by the republican sentiment; this +people, who had sacrificed so much for Freedom; this people, who, in the +name of Freedom, had perpetrated so much crime with Robespierre, and +achieved so much glory with Napoleon,--this people were, as a people, +contented to be utterly excluded from all power and voice in the State! +Out of thirty-three millions of subjects, less than two hundred thousand +electors! Where was there ever an oligarchy equal to this? What a +strange infatuation, to demolish an aristocracy and yet to exclude a +people! What an anomaly in political architecture, to build an inverted +pyramid! Where was the safety-valve of governments, where the natural +vents of excitement in a population so inflammable? The people itself +were left a mob,--no stake in the State, no action in its affairs, no +legislative interest in its security.* + + * Has not all this proved prophetic? + +On the other hand, it was singular to see how--the aristocracy of birth +broken down--the aristocracy of letters had arisen. A Peerage, half +composed of journalists, philosophers, and authors! This was the +beau-ideal of Algernon Sidney's Aristocratic Republic, of the Helvetian +vision of what ought to be the dispensation of public distinctions; yet +was it, after all, a desirable aristocracy? Did society gain; did +literature lose? Was the priesthood of Genius made more sacred and more +pure by these worldly decorations and hollow titles; or was aristocracy +itself thus rendered a more disinterested, a more powerful, or a more +sagacious element in the administration of law, or the elevation of +opinion? These questions, not lightly to be answered, could not fail to +arouse the speculation and curiosity of a man who had been familiar with +the closet and the forum; and in proportion as he found his interest +excited in these problems to be solved by a foreign nation, did the +thoughtful Englishman feel the old instinct--which binds the citizen to +the fatherland--begin to stir once more earnestly and vividly within him. + +"You, yourself individually, are passing like us," said De Montaigne one +day to Maltravers, "through a state of transition. You have forever left +the Ideal, and you are carrying your cargo of experience over to the +Practical. When you reach that haven, you will have completed the +development of your forces." + +"You mistake me,--I am but a spectator." + +"Yes; but you desire to go behind the scenes; and he who once grows +familiar with the green-room, longs to be an actor." + +With Madame de Ventadour and the De Montaignes Maltravers passed the +chief part of his time. They knew how to appreciate his nobler and to +love his gentler attributes and qualities; they united in a warm interest +for his future fate; they combated his Philosophy of Inaction; and they +felt that it was because he was not happy that he was not wise. +Experience was to him what ignorance had been to Alice. His faculties +were chilled and dormant. As affection to those who are unskilled in all +things, so is affection to those who despair of all things. The mind of +Maltravers was a world without a sun! + + + +CHAPTER III. + + COELEBS, quid agam?*--HORACE. + + * "What shall I do, a bachelor?" + +IN a room at Fenton's Hotel sat Lord Vargrave and Caroline Lady +Doltimore,--two months after the marriage of the latter. + +"Doltimore has positively fixed, then, to go abroad on your return from +Cornwall?" + +"Positively,--to Paris. You can join us at Christmas, I trust?" + +"I have no doubt of it; and before then I hope that I shall have arranged +certain public matters, which at present harass and absorb me even more +than my private affairs." + +"You have managed to obtain terms with Mr. Douce, and to delay the +repayment of your debt to him?" + +"Yes, I hope so, till I touch Miss Cameron's income; which will be mine, +I trust, by the time she is eighteen." + +"You mean the forfeit money of thirty thousand pounds?" + +"Not I; I mean what I said!" + +"Can you really imagine she will still accept your hand?" + +"With your aid, I do imagine it! Hear me. You must take Evelyn with you +to Paris. I have no doubt but that she will be delighted to accompany +you; nay, I have paved the way so far. For, of course, as a friend of +the family, and guardian to Evelyn, I have maintained a correspondence +with Lady Vargrave. She informs me that Evelyn has been unwell and +low-spirited; that she fears Brook-Green is dull for her, etc. I wrote, +in reply, to say that the more my ward saw of the world, prior to her +accession, when of age, to the position she would occupy in it, the more +she would fulfil my late uncle's wishes with respect to her education and +so forth. I added that as you were going to Paris, and as you loved her +so much, there could not be a better opportunity for her entrance into +life under the most favourable auspices. Lady Vargrave's answer to this +letter arrived this morning: she will consent to such an arrangement +should you propose it." + +"But what good will result to yourself in this project? At Paris you +will be sure of rivals, and--" + +"Caroline," interrupted Lord Vargrave, "I know very well what you would +say: I also know all the danger I must incur. But it is a choice of +evils, and I choose the least. You see that while she is at Brook-Green, +and under the eye of that sly old curate, I can effect nothing with her. +There, she is entirely removed from my influence: not so abroad; not so +under your roof. Listen to me still further. In this country, and +especially in the seclusion and shelter of Brook-Green, I have no scope +for any of those means which I shall be compelled to resort to, in +failure of all else." + +"What can you intend?" said Caroline, with a slight shudder. + +"I don't know what I intend yet. But this, at least, I can tell +you,--that Miss Cameron's fortune I must and will have. I am a desperate +man; and I can play a desperate game, if need be." + +"And do you think that _I_ will aid, will abet?" + +"Hush, not so loud! Yes, Caroline, you will, and you must aid and abet +me in any project I may form." + +"Must! Lord Vargrave?" + +"Ay," said Lumley, with a smile, and sinking his voice into a +whisper,--"ay! _you are in my power_!" + +"Traitor!--you cannot dare! you cannot mean--" + +"I mean nothing more than to remind you of the ties that exist between +us,--ties which ought to render us the firmest and most confidential of +friends. Come, Caroline, recollect all the benefit must not lie on one +side. I have obtained for you rank and wealth; I have procured you a +husband,--you must help me to a wife!" + +Caroline sank back, and covered her face with her hands. + +"I allow," continued Vargrave, coldly,--"I allow that your beauty and +talent were sufficient of themselves to charm a wiser man than Doltimore; +but had I not suppressed jealousy, sacrificed love, had I dropped a hint +to your liege lord,--nay, had I not fed his lap-dog vanity by all the +cream and sugar of flattering falsehoods,--you would be Caroline Merton +still!" + +"Oh, would that I were! Oh that I were anything but your tool, your +victim! Fool that I was! wretch that I am! I am rightly punished!" + +"Forgive me, forgive me, dearest," said Vargrave, soothingly; "I was to +blame, forgive me: but you irritated, you maddened me, by your seeming +indifference to my prosperity, my fate. I tell you again and again, +pride of my soul, I tell you, that you are the only being I love! and if +you will allow me, if you will rise superior, as I once fondly hoped, to +all the cant and prejudice of convention and education, the only woman I +could ever respect, as well as love. Oh, hereafter, when you see me at +that height to which I feel that I am born to climb, let me think that to +your generosity, your affection, your zeal, I owed the ascent. At +present I am on the precipice; without your hand I fall forever. My own +fortune is gone; the miserable forfeit due to me, if Evelyn continues to +reject my suit, when she has arrived at the age of eighteen, is deeply +mortgaged. I am engaged in vast and daring schemes, in which I may +either rise to the highest station or lose that which I now hold. In +either case, how necessary to me is wealth: in the one instance, to +maintain my advancement; in the other, to redeem my fall." + +"But did you not tell me," said Caroline, "that Evelyn proposed and +promised to place her fortune at your disposal, even while rejecting your +hand?" + +"Absurd mockery!" exclaimed Vargrave; "the foolish boast of a girl,--an +impulse liable to every caprice. Can you suppose that when she launches +into the extravagance natural to her age and necessary to her position, +she will not find a thousand demands upon her rent-roll not dreamed of +now; a thousand vanities and baubles that will soon erase my poor and +hollow claim from her recollection? Can you suppose that, if she marry +another, her husband will ever consent to a child's romance? And even +were all this possible, were it possible that girls were not extravagant, +and that husbands had no common-sense, is it for me, Lord Vargrave, to be +a mendicant upon reluctant bounty,--a poor cousin, a pensioned +led-captain? Heaven knows I have as little false pride as any man, but +still this is a degradation I cannot stoop to. Besides, Caroline, I am +no miser, no Harpagon: I do not want wealth for wealth's sake, but for +the advantages it bestows,--respect, honour, position; and these I get as +the husband of the great heiress. Should I get them as her dependant? +No: for more than six years I have built my schemes and shaped my conduct +according to one assured and definite object; and that object I shall not +now, at the eleventh hour, let slip from my hands. Enough of this: you +will pass Brook-Green in returning from Cornwall; you will take Evelyn +with you to Paris,--leave the rest to me. Fear no folly, no violence, +from my plans, whatever they may be: I work in the dark. Nor do I +despair that Evelyn will love, that Evelyn will voluntarily accept me +yet: my disposition is sanguine; I look to the bright side of things; do +the same!" + +Here their conference was interrupted by Lord Doltimore, who lounged +carelessly into the room, with his hat on one side. "Ah, Vargrave, how +are you? You will not forget the letters of introduction? Where are you +going, Caroline?" + +"Only to my own room, to put on my bonnet; the carriage will be here in a +few minutes." And Caroline escaped. + +"So you go to Cornwall to-morrow, Doltimore?" + +"Yes; cursed bore! but Lady Elizabeth insists on seeing us, and I don't +object to a week's good shooting. The old lady, too, has something to +leave, and Caroline had no dowry,--not that I care for it; but still +marriage is expensive." + +"By the by, you will want the five thousand pounds you lent me?" + +"Why, whenever it is convenient." + +Say no more,--it shall be seen to. Doltimore, I am very anxious that +Lady Doltimore's _debut_ at Paris should be brilliant: everything depends +on falling into the right set. For myself, I don't care about fashion, +and never did; but if I were married, and an idle man like you, it might +be different." + +"Oh, you will be very useful to us when we return to London. Meanwhile, +you know, you have my proxy in the Lords. I dare say there will be some +sharp work the first week or two after the recess." + +"Very likely; and depend on one thing, my dear Doltimore, that when I am +in the Cabinet, a certain friend of mine shall be an earl. Adieu." + +"Good-by, my dear Vargrave, good-by; and, I say,--I say, don't distress +yourself about that trifle; a few months hence it will suit me just as +well." + +"Thanks. I will just look into my accounts, and use you without +ceremony. Well, I dare say we shall meet at Paris. Oh, I forgot,--I +observe that you have renewed your intimacy with Legard. Now, he is a +very good fellow, and I gave him that place to oblige you; still, as you +are no longer a _garcon_--but perhaps I shall offend you?" + +"Not at all. What is there against Legard?" + +"Nothing in the world,--but he is a bit of a boaster. I dare say his +ancestor was a Gascon, poor fellow!--and he affects to say that you can't +choose a coat, or buy a horse, without his approval and advice,--that he +can turn you round his finger. Now this hurts your consequence in the +world,--you don't get credit for your own excellent sense and taste. +Take my advice, avoid these young hangers-on of fashion, these club-room +lions. Having no importance of their own, they steal the importance of +their friends. _Verbum sap_." + +"You are very right,--Legard _is_ a coxcomb; and now I see why he talked +of joining us at Paris." + +"Don't let him do any such thing! He will be telling the Frenchmen that +her ladyship is in love with him, ha, ha!" + +"Ha, ha!--a very good joke--poor Caroline!--very good joke!" + +"Well, good-by, once more." And Vargrave closed the door. + +"Legard go to Paris--not if Evelyn goes there!" muttered Lumley. +"Besides, I want no partner in the little that one can screw out of this +blockhead." + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + MR. BUMBLECASE, a word with you--I have a little business. + Farewell, the goodly Manor of Blackacre, with all its woods, + underwoods, and appurtenances whatever.--WYCHERLEY: _Plain Dealer_. + +IN quitting Fenton's Hotel, Lord Vargrave entered into one of the clubs +in St. James's Street: this was rather unusual with him, for he was not a +club man. It was not his system to spend his time for nothing. But it +was a wet December day; the House was not yet assembled, and he had done +his official business. Here, as he was munching a biscuit and reading an +article in one of the ministerial papers--the heads of which he himself +had supplied--Lord Saxingham joined and drew him to the window. + +"I have reason to think," said the earl, "that your visit to Windsor did +good." + +"Ah, indeed; so I fancied." + +"I do not think that a certain personage will ever consent to the ----- +question; and the premier, whom I saw to-day, seems chafed and +irritated." + +"Nothing can be better; I know that we are in the right boat." + +"I hope it is not true, Lumley, that your marriage with Miss Cameron is +broken off; such was the _on dit_ in the club, just before you entered." + +"Contradict it, my dear lord,--contradict it. I hope by the spring to +introduce Lady Vargrave to you. But who broached the absurd report?" + +"Why, your _protege_, Legard, says he heard so from his uncle, who heard +it from Sir John Merton." + +"Legard is a puppy, and Sir John Merton a jackass. Legard had better +attend to his office, if he wants to get on; and I wish you'd tell him +so. I have heard somewhere that he talks of going to Paris,--you can +just hint to him that he must give up such idle habits. Public +functionaries are not now what they were,--people are expected to work +for the money they pocket; otherwise Legard is a cleverish fellow, and +deserves promotion. A word or two of caution from you will do him a vast +deal of good." + +"Be sure I will lecture him. Will you dine with me to-day, Lumley?" + +"No. I expect my co-trustee, Mr. Douce, on matters of business,--a +_tete-a-tete_ dinner." + +Lord Vargrave had, as he conceived, very cleverly talked over Mr. Douce +into letting his debt to that gentleman run on for the present; and in +the meanwhile, he had overwhelmed Mr. Douce with his condescensions. +That gentleman had twice dined with Lord Vargrave, and Lord Vargrave had +twice dined with him. The occasion of the present more familiar +entertainment was in a letter from Mr. Douce, begging to see Lord +Vargrave on particular business; and Vargrave, who by no means liked the +word _business_ from a gentleman to whom he owed money, thought that it +would go off more smoothly if sprinkled with champagne. + +Accordingly, he begged "My dear Mr. Douce" to excuse ceremony, and dine +with him on Thursday at seven o'clock,--he was really so busy all the +mornings. + +At seven o'clock, Mr. Douce came. The moment he entered Vargrave called +out, at the top of his voice, "Dinner immediately!" And as the little +man bowed and shuffled, and fidgeted and wriggled (while Vargrave shook +him by the hand), as if he thought he was going himself to be spitted, +his host said, "With your leave, we'll postpone the budget till after +dinner. It is the fashion nowadays to postpone budgets as long as we +can,--eh? Well, and how are all at home? Devilish cold; is it not? So +you go to your villa every day? That's what keeps you in such capital +health. You know I had a villa too,--though I never had time to go +there." + +"Ah, yes; I think, I remember, at Ful-Ful-Fulham!" gasped out Mr. Douce. +"Your poor uncle's--now Lady Var-Vargrave's jointure-house. So--so--" + +"She don't live there!" burst in Vargrave (far too impatient to be +polite). "Too cockneyfied for her,--gave it up to me; very pretty place, +but d-----d expensive. I could not afford it, never went there, and so I +have let it to my wine-merchant; the rent just pays his bill. You will +taste some of the sofas and tables to-day in his champagne. I don't know +how it is, I always fancy my sherry smells like my poor uncle's old +leather chair: very odd smell it had,--a kind of respectable smell! I +hope you're hungry,--dinner's ready." + +Vargrave thus rattled away in order to give the good banker to understand +that his affairs were in the most flourishing condition: and he continued +to keep up the ball all dinnertime, stopping Mr. Douce's little, +miserable, gasping, dacelike mouth, with "a glass of wine, Douce?" or "by +the by, Douce," whenever he saw that worthy gentleman about to make the +AEschylean improvement of a second person in the dialogue. + +At length, dinner being fairly over, and the servants withdrawn, Lord +Vargrave, knowing that sooner or later Douce would have his say, drew his +chair to the fire, put his feet on the fender, and cried, as he tossed +off his claret, "NOW, DOUCE, WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?" + +Mr. Douce opened his eyes to their full extent, and then as rapidly +closed them; and this operation he continued till, having snuffed them so +much that they could by no possibility burn any brighter, he was +convinced that he had not misunderstood his lordship. + +"Indeed, then," he began, in his most frightened manner, +"indeed--I--really, your lordship is very good--I--I wanted to speak to +you on business." + +"Well, what can I do for you,--some little favour, eh? Snug sinecure for +a favourite clerk, or a place in the Stamp-Office for your fat +footman--John, I think you call him? You know, my dear Douce, you may +command me." + +"Oh, indeed, you are all good-good-goodness--but--but--" + +Vargrave threw himself back, and shutting his eyes and pursing up his +mouth, resolutely suffered Mr. Douce to unbosom himself without +interruption. He was considerably relieved to find that the business +referred to related only to Miss Cameron. + +Mr. Douce having reminded Lord Vargrave, as he had often done before, of +the wishes of his uncle, that the greater portion of the money bequeathed +to Evelyn should be invested in land, proceeded to say that a most +excellent opportunity presented itself for just such a purchase as would +have rejoiced the heart of the late lord,--a superb place, in the style +of Blickling,--deer-park six miles round, ten thousand acres of land, +bringing in a clear eight thousand pounds a year, purchase money only two +hundred and forty thousand pounds. The whole estate was, indeed, much +larger,--eighteen thousand acres; but then the more distant farms could +be sold in different lots, in order to meet the exact sum Miss Cameron's +trustees were enabled to invest. + +"Well," said Vargrave, "and where is it? My poor uncle was after De +Clifford's estate, but the title was not good." + +"Oh! this--is much--much--much fi-fi-finer; famous investment--but rather +far off--in--in the north, Li-Li-Lisle Court." + +"Lisle Court! Why, does not that belong to Colonel Maltravers?" + +"Yes. It is, indeed, quite, I may say, a secret-yes--really--a +se-se-secret--not in the market yet--not at all--soon snapped up." + +"Humph! Has Colonel Maltravers been extravagant?" + +"No; but he does not--I hear--or rather Lady--Julia--so I'm told, yes, +indeed--does not li-like--going so far, and so they spend the winter in +Italy instead. Yes--very odd--very fine place." + +Lumley was slightly acquainted with the elder brother of his old +friend,--a man who possessed some of Ernest's faults,--very proud, and +very exacting, and very fastidious; but all these faults were developed +in the ordinary commonplace world, and were not the refined abstractions +of his younger brother. + +Colonel Maltravers had continued, since he entered the Guards, to be +thoroughly the man of fashion, and nothing more. But rich and well-born, +and highly connected, and thoroughly _a la mode_ as he was, his pride +made him uncomfortable in London, while his fastidiousness made him +uncomfortable in the country. He was _rather_ a great person, but he +wanted to be a _very_ great person. This he was at Lisle Court; but that +did not satisfy him. He wanted not only to be a very great person, but a +very great person among very great persons--and squires and parsons bored +him. Lady Julia, his wife, was a fine lady, inane and pretty, who saw +everything through her husband's eyes. He was quite master _chez lui_, +was Colonel Maltravers! He lived a great deal abroad; for on the +Continent his large income seemed princely, while his high character, +thorough breeding, and personal advantages, which were remarkable, +secured him a greater position in foreign courts than at his own. Two +things had greatly disgusted him with Lisle Court,--trifles they might be +with others, but they were not trifles to Cuthbert Maltravers; in the +first place, a man who had been his father's attorney, and who was the +very incarnation of coarse unrepellable familiarity, had bought an estate +close by the said Lisle Court, and had, _horresco referens_, been made a +baronet! Sir Gregory Gubbins took precedence of Colonel Maltravers! He +could not ride out but he met Sir Gregory; he could not dine out but he +had the pleasure of walking behind Sir Gregory's bright blue coat with +its bright brass buttons. In his last visit to Lisle Court, which he had +then crowded with all manner of fine people, he had seen--the very first +morning after his arrival--seen from the large window of his state +saloon, a great staring white, red, blue, and gilt thing, at the end of +the stately avenue planted by Sir Guy Maltravers in honour of the victory +over the Spanish armada. He looked in mute surprise, and everybody else +looked; and a polite German count, gazing through his eye-glass, said, +"Ah! dat is vat you call a vim in your _pays_,--the vim of Colonel +Maltravers!" + +This "vim" was the pagoda summer-house of Sir Gregory Gubbins, erected in +imitation of the Pavilion at Brighton. Colonel Maltravers was miserable: +the _vim_ haunted him; it seemed ubiquitous; he could not escape it,--it +was built on the highest spot in the county. Ride, walk, sit where he +would, the _vim_ stared at him; and he thought he saw little mandarins +shake their round little heads at him. This was one of the great curses +of Lisle Court; the other was yet more galling. The owners of Lisle +Court had for several generations possessed the dominant interest in the +county town. The colonel himself meddled little in politics, and was too +fine a gentleman for the drudgery of parliament. He had offered the seat +to Ernest, when the latter had commenced his public career; but the +result of a communication proved that their political views were +dissimilar, and the negotiation dropped without ill-feeling on either +side. Subsequently a vacancy occurred; and Lady Julia's brother (just +made a Lord of the Treasury) wished to come into parliament, so the +county town was offered to him. Now, the proud commoner had married into +the family of a peer as proud as himself, and Colonel Maltravers was +always glad whenever he could impress his consequence on his connections +by doing them a favour. He wrote to his steward to see that the thing +was properly settled, and came down on the nomination-day "to share the +triumph and partake the gale." Guess his indignation, when he found the +nephew of Sir Gregory Gubbins was already in the field! The result of +the election was that Mr. Augustus Gubbins came in, and that Colonel +Maltravers was pelted with cabbage-stalks, and accused of attempting to +sell the worthy and independent electors to a government nominee! In +shame and disgust, Colonel Maltravers broke up his establishment at Lisle +Court, and once more retired to the Continent. + +About a week from the date now touched upon, Lady Julia and himself had +arrived in London from Vienna; and a new mortification awaited the +unfortunate owner of Lisle Court. A railroad company had been +established, of which Sir Gregory Gubbins was a principal shareholder; +and the speculator, Mr. Augustus Gubbins, one of the "most useful men in +the House," had undertaken to carry the bill through parliament. Colonel +Maltravers received a letter of portentous size, inclosing the map of the +places which this blessed railway was to bisect; and lo! just at the +bottom of his park ran a portentous line, which informed him of the +sacrifice he was expected to make for the public good,--especially for +the good of that very county town, the inhabitants of which had pelted +him with cabbage-stalks! + +Colonel Maltravers lost all patience. Unacquainted with our wise +legislative proceedings, he was not aware that a railway planned is a +very different thing from a railway made; and that parliamentary +committees are not by any means favourable to schemes for carrying the +public through a gentleman's park. + +"This country is not to be lived in," said he to Lady Julia; "it gets +worse and worse every year. I am sure I never had any comfort in Lisle +Court. I've a great mind to sell it." + +"Why, indeed, as we have no sons, only daughters, and Ernest is so well +provided for," said Lady Julia, "and the place is so far from London, and +the neighbourhood is so disagreeable, I think we could do very well +without it." + +Colonel Maltravers made no answer, but he revolved the pros and cons; and +then he began to think how much it cost him in gamekeepers and carpenters +and bailiffs and gardeners and Heaven knows whom besides; and then the +pagoda flashed across him; and then the cabbage-stalks, and at last he +went to his solicitor. + +"You may sell Lisle Court," said he, quietly. + +The solicitor dipped his pen in the ink. "The particulars, Colonel?" + +"Particulars of Lisle Court! everybody, that is, every gentleman, knows +Lisle Court!" + +"Price, sir?" + +"You know the rents; calculate accordingly. It will be too large a +purchase for one individual; sell the outlying woods and farms separately +from the rest." + +"We must draw up an advertisement, Colonel." + +"Advertise Lisle Court! out of the question, sir. I can have no +publicity given to my intention: mention it quietly to any capitalist; +but keep it out of the papers till it is all settled. In a week or two +you will find a purchaser,--the sooner the better." + +Besides his horror of newspaper comments and newspaper puffs, Colonel +Maltravers dreaded that his brother--then in Paris--should learn his +intention, and attempt to thwart it; and, somehow or other, the colonel +was a little in awe of Ernest, and a little ashamed of his resolution. +He did not know that, by a singular coincidence, Ernest himself had +thought of selling Burleigh. + +The solicitor was by no means pleased with this way of settling the +matter. However, he whispered it about that Lisle Court was in the +market; and as it really was one of the most celebrated places of its +kind in England, the whisper spread among bankers and brewers and +soap-boilers and other rich people--the Medici of the New Noblesse rising +up amongst us--till at last it reached the ears of Mr. Douce. + +Lord Vargrave, however bad a man he might be, had not many of those vices +of character which belong to what I may call the _personal class of +vices_,--that is, he had no ill-will to individuals. He was not, +ordinarily, a jealous man, nor a spiteful, nor a malignant, nor a +vindictive man: his vices arose from utter indifference to all men, and +all things--except as conducive to his own ends. He would not have +injured a worm if it did him no good; but he would have set any house on +fire if he had no other means of roasting his own eggs. Yet still, if +any feeling of personal rancour could harbour in his breast, it was, +first, towards Evelyn Cameron, and, secondly, towards Ernest Maltravers. +For the first time in his life, he did long for revenge,--revenge against +the one for stealing his patrimony, and refusing his hand; and that +revenge he hoped to gratify. + +As to the other, it was not so much dislike he felt, as an uneasy +sentiment of inferiority. However well he himself had got on in the +world, he yet grudged the reputation of a man whom he had remembered a +wayward, inexperienced boy: he did not love to hear any one praise +Maltravers. He fancied, too, that this feeling was reciprocal, and that +Maltravers was pained at hearing of any new step in his own career. In +fact, it was that sort of jealousy which men often feel for the +companions of their youth, whose characters are higher than their own, +and whose talents are of an order they do not quite comprehend. Now, it +certainly did seem at that moment to Lord Vargrave that it would be a +most splendid triumph over Mr. Maltravers of Burleigh to be lord of Lisle +Court, the hereditary seat of the elder branch of the family to be, as it +were, in the very shoes of Mr. Ernest Maltravers's elder brother. He +knew, too, that it was a property of great consequence. Lord Vargrave of +Lisle Court would hold a very different post in the peerage from Lord +Vargrave of -----, Fulham! Nobody would call the owner of Lisle Court an +adventurer; nobody would suspect such a man of caring three straws about +place and salary. And if he married Evelyn, and if Evelyn bought Lisle +Court, would not Lisle Court be his? He vaulted over the _ifs_, stiff +monosyllables though they were, with a single jump. Besides, even should +the thing come to nothing, there was the very excuse he sought for +joining Evelyn at Paris, for conversing with her, consulting her. It was +true that the will of the late lord left it solely at the discretion of +the trustees to select such landed investment as seemed best to them; but +still it was, if not legally necessary, at least but a proper courtesy to +consult Evelyn. And plans, and drawings, and explanations, and +rent-rolls, would justify him in spending morning after morning alone +with her. + +Thus cogitating, Lord Vargrave suffered Mr. Douce to stammer out sentence +upon sentence, till at length, as he rang for coffee, his lordship +stretched himself with the air of a man stretching himself into +self-complacency or a good thing, and said,-- + +"Mr. Douce, I will go down to Lisle Court as soon as I can; I will see +it; I will ascertain all about it; I will consider favourably of it. I +agree with you, I think it will do famously." + +"But," said Mr. Douce, who seemed singularly anxious about the matter, +"we must make haste, my lord; for really--yes, indeed--if--if--if Baron +Roths--Rothschild should--that is to say--" + +"Oh, yes, I understand; keep the thing close, my dear Douce; make friends +with the colonel's lawyer; play with him a little, till I can run down." + +"Besides, you see, you are such a good man of business, my lord--that you +see, that--yes, really--there must be time to draw out the +purchase-money--sell out at a prop--prop--" + +"To be sure, to be sure! Bless me, how late it is! I am afraid my +carriage is ready. I must go to Madame de L-----'s." + +Mr. Douce, who seemed to have much more to say, was forced to keep it for +another time, and to take his leave. Lord Vargrave went to Madame de +L-----'s. His position in what is called Exclusive Society was rather +peculiar. By those who affected to be the best judges, the frankness of +his manner and the easy oddity of his conversation were pronounced at +variance with the tranquil serenity of thorough breeding. But still he +was a great favourite both with fine ladies and dandies. His handsome +keen countenance, his talents, his politics, his intrigues, and an +animated boldness in his bearing, compensated for his constant violation +of all the minutiae of orthodox conventionalism. + +At this house he met Colonel Maltravers, and took an opportunity to renew +his acquaintance with that gentleman. He then referred, in a +confidential whisper, to the communication he had received touching Lisle +Court. + +"Yes," said the colonel, "I suppose I must sell the place, if I can do so +quietly. To be sure, when I first spoke to my lawyer it was in a moment +of vexation, on hearing that the ----- railroad was to go through the +park, but I find that I overrated that danger. Still, if you will do me +the honour to go and look over the place, you will find very good +shooting; and when you come back, you can see if it will suit you. Don't +say anything about it when you are there; it is better not to publish my +intention all over the county. I shall have Sir Gregory Gubbins offering +to buy it if you do!" + +"You may depend on my discretion. Have you heard anything of your +brother lately?" + +"Yes; I fancy he is going to Switzerland. He would soon be in England, +if he heard I was going to part with Lisle Court!" + +"What, it would vex him so?" + +"I fear it would; but he has a nice old place of his own, not half so +large, and therefore not half so troublesome as Lisle Court." + +"Ay! and he _did_ talk of selling that nice old place." + +"Selling Burleigh! you surprise me. But really country places in England +_are_ a bore. I suppose he has his Gubbins as well as myself!" + +Here the chief minister of the government adorned by Lord Vargrave's +virtues passed by, and Lumley turned to greet him. + +The two ministers talked together most affectionately in a close +whisper,--so affectionately, that one might have seen, with half an eye, +that they hated each other like poison! + + + +CHAPTER V. + + INSPICERE tanquam in speculum, in vitas omnium + Jubeo.*--TERENCE. + + * "I bid you look into the lives of all men, as + it were into a mirror." + +ERNEST MALTRAVERS still lingered at Paris: he gave up all notion of +proceeding farther. He was, in fact, tired of travel. But there was +another reason that chained him to that "Navel of the Earth,"--there is +not anywhere a better sounding-board to London rumours than the English +_quartier_ between the Boulevard des Italiennes and the Tuileries; here, +at all events, he should soonest learn the worst: and every day, as he +took up the English newspapers, a sick feeling of apprehension and fear +came over him. No! till the seal was set upon the bond, till the Rubicon +was passed, till Miss Cameron was the wife of Lord Vargrave, he could +neither return to the home that was so eloquent with the recollections of +Evelyn, nor, by removing farther from England, delay the receipt of an +intelligence which he vainly told himself he was prepared to meet. + +He continued to seek such distractions from thought as were within his +reach; and as his heart was too occupied for pleasures which had, indeed, +long since palled, those distractions were of the grave and noble +character which it is a prerogative of the intellect to afford to the +passions. + +De Montaigne was neither a Doctrinaire nor a Republican,--and yet, +perhaps, he was a little of both. He was one who thought that the +tendency of all European States is towards Democracy; but he by no means +looked upon Democracy as a panacea for all legislative evils. He thought +that, while a writer should be in advance of his time, a statesman should +content himself with marching by its side; that a nation could not be +ripened, like an exotic, by artificial means; that it must be developed +only by natural influences. He believed that forms of government are +never universal in their effects. Thus, De Montaigne conceived that we +were wrong in attaching more importance to legislative than to social +reforms. He considered, for instance, that the surest sign of our +progressive civilization is in our growing distaste to capital +punishments. He believed, not in the ultimate _perfection_ of mankind, +but in their progressive _perfectibility_. He thought that improvement +was indefinite; but he did not place its advance more under Republican +than under Monarchical forms. "Provided," he was wont to say, "all our +checks to power are of the right kind, it matters little to what hands +the power itself is confided." + +"AEgina and Athens," said he, "were republics--commercial and +maritime--placed under the same sky, surrounded by the same neighbours, +and rent by the same struggles between Oligarchy and Democracy. Yet, +while one left the world an immortal heirloom of genius, where are the +poets, the philosophers, the statesmen of the other? Arrian tells us of +republics in India, still supposed to exist by modern investigators; but +they are not more productive of liberty of thought, or ferment of +intellect, than the principalities. In Italy there were commonwealths as +liberal as the Republic of Florence; but they did not produce a +Machiavelli or a Dante. What daring thought, what gigantic speculation, +what democracy of wisdom and genius, have sprung up amongst the +despotisms of Germany! You cannot educate two individuals so as to +produce the same results from both; you cannot, by similar constitutions +(which are the education of nations) produce the same results from +different communities. The proper object of statesmen should be to give +every facility to the people to develop themselves, and every facility to +philosophy to dispute and discuss as to the ultimate objects to be +obtained. But you cannot, as a practical legislator, place your country +under a melon-frame: it must grow of its own accord." + +I do not say whether or not De Montaigne was wrong! but Maltravers saw at +least that he was faithful to his theories; that all his motives were +sincere, all his practice pure. He could not but allow, too, that in his +occupations and labours, De Montaigne appeared to feel a sublime +enjoyment; that, in linking all the powers of his mind to active and +useful objects, De Montaigne was infinitely happier than the Philosophy +of Indifference, the scorn of ambition, had made Maltravers. The +influence exercised by the large-souled and practical Frenchman over the +fate and the history of Maltravers was very peculiar. + +De Montaigne had not, apparently and directly, operated upon his friend's +outward destinies; but he had done so indirectly, by operating on his +mind. Perhaps it was he who had consolidated the first wavering and +uncertain impulses of Maltravers towards literary exertion; it was he who +had consoled him for the mortifications at the earlier part of his +career; and now, perhaps he might serve, in the full vigour of his +intellect, permanently to reconcile the Englishman to the claims of life. + +There were, indeed, certain conversations which Maltravers held with De +Montaigne, the germ and pith of which it is necessary that I should place +before the reader,--for I write the inner as well as the outer history of +a man; and the great incidents of life are not brought about only by the +dramatic agencies of others, but also by our own reasonings and habits of +thought. What I am now about to set down may be wearisome, but it is not +episodical; and I promise that it shall be the last didactic conversation +in the work. + +One day Maltravers was relating to De Montaigne all that he had been +planning at Burleigh for the improvement of his peasantry, and all his +theories respecting Labour-Schools and Poor-rates, when De Montaigne +abruptly turned round, and said,-- + +"You have, then, really found that in your own little village your +exertions--exertions not very arduous, not demanding a tenth part of your +time--have done practical good?" + +"Certainly I think so," replied Maltravers, in some surprise. + +"And yet it was but yesterday that you declared that all the labours of +Philosophy and Legislation were labours vain; their benefits equivocal +and uncertain; that as the sea, where it loses in one place, gains in +another, so civilization only partially profits us, stealing away one +virtue while it yields another, and leaving the large proportions of good +and evil eternally the same." + +"True; but I never said that man might not relieve individuals by +individual exertion: though he cannot by abstract theories--nay, even by +practical action in the wide circle--benefit the mass." + +"Do you not employ on behalf of individuals the same moral agencies that +wise legislation or sound philosophy would adopt towards the multitude? +For example, you find that the children of your village are happier, more +orderly, more obedient, promise to be wiser and better men in their own +station of life, from the new, and, I grant, excellent system of school +discipline and teaching that you have established. What you have done in +one village, why should not legislation do throughout a kingdom? Again, +you find that, by simply holding out hope and emulation to industry, by +making stern distinctions between the energetic and the idle, the +independent exertion and the pauper-mendicancy, you have found a lever by +which you have literally moved and shifted the little world around you. +But what is the difference here between the rules of a village lord and +the laws of a wise legislature? The moral feelings you have appealed to +exist universally, the moral remedies you have practised are as open to +legislation as to the individual proprietor." + +"Yes; but when you apply to a nation the same principles which regenerate +a village, new counterbalancing principles arise. If I give education to +my peasants, I send them into the world with advantages _superior_ to +their fellows,--advantages which, not being common to their class, enable +them to _outstrip_ their fellows. But if this education were universal +to the whole tribe, no man would have an advantage superior to the +others; the knowledge they would have acquired being shared by all, would +leave all as they now are, hewers of wood and drawers of water: the +principle of individual hope, which springs from knowledge, would soon be +baffled by the vast competition that _universal_ knowledge would produce. +Thus by the universal improvement would be engendered a universal +discontent. + +"Take a broader view of the subject. Advantages given to the _few_ +around me--superior wages, lighter toils, a greater sense of the dignity +of man--are not productive of any change in society. Give these +advantages to the _whole mass_ of the labouring classes, and what in the +small orbit is the desire of the _individual_ to rise becomes in the +large circumference the desire of the _class_ to rise; hence social +restlessness, social change, revolution, and its hazards. For +revolutions are produced but by the aspirations of one order, and the +resistance of the other. Consequently, legislative improvement differs +widely from individual amelioration; the same principle, the same agency, +that purifies the small body, becomes destructive when applied to the +large one. Apply the flame to the log on the hearth, or apply it to the +forest, is there no distinction in the result? The breeze that freshens +the fountain passes to the ocean, current impels current, wave urges +wave, and the breeze becomes the storm." + +"Were there truth in this train of argument," replied De Montaigne, "had +we ever abstained from communicating to the Multitude the enjoyments and +advantages of the Few, had we shrunk from the good, because the good is a +parent of the change and its partial ills, what now would be society? Is +there no difference in collective happiness and virtue between the +painted Picts and the Druid worship, and the glorious harmony, light, and +order of the great English nation?" + +"The question is popular," said Maltravers, with a smile; "and were you +my opponent in an election, would be cheered on any hustings in the +kingdom. But I have lived among savage tribes,--savage, perhaps, as the +race that resisted Caesar; and their happiness seems to me, not perhaps +the same as that of the few whose sources of enjoyment are numerous, +refined, and, save by their own passions, unalloyed; but equal to that of +the mass of men in States the most civilized and advanced. The artisans, +crowded together in the fetid air of factories, with physical ills +gnawing at the core of the constitution, from the cradle to the grave; +drudging on from dawn to sunset and flying for recreation to the dread +excitement of the dram-shop, or the wild and vain hopes of political +fanaticism,--are not in my eyes happier than the wild Indians with hardy +frames and calm tempers, seasoned to the privations for which you pity +them, and uncursed with desires of that better state never to be theirs. +The Arab in his desert has seen all the luxuries of the pasha in his +harem; but he envies them not. He is contented with his barb, his tent, +his desolate sands, and his spring of refreshing water. + +"Are we not daily told, do not our priests preach it from their pulpits, +that the cottage shelters happiness equal to that within the palace? Yet +what the distinction between the peasant and the prince, differing from +that between the peasant and the savage? There are more enjoyments and +more privations in the one than in the other; but if, in the latter case, +the enjoyments, though fewer, be more keenly felt,--if the privations, +though apparently sharper, fall upon duller sensibilities and hardier +frames,--your gauge of proportion loses all its value. Nay, in +civilization there is for the multitude an evil that exists not in the +savage state. The poor man sees daily and hourly all the vast +disparities produced by civilized society; and reversing the divine +parable, it is Lazarus who from afar, and from the despondent pit, looks +upon Dives in the lap of Paradise: therefore, his privations, his +sufferings, are made more keen by comparison with the luxuries of others. +Not so in the desert and the forest. There but small distinctions, and +those softened by immemorial and hereditary usage--that has in it the +sanctity of religion--separate the savage from his chief. The fact is, +that in civilization we behold a splendid aggregate,--literature and +science, wealth and luxury, commerce and glory; but we see not the +million victims crushed beneath the wheels of the machine,--the health +sacrificed, the board breadless, the jails filled, the hospitals reeking, +the human life poisoned in every spring, and poured forth like water! +Neither do we remember all the steps, marked by desolation, crime, and +bloodshed, by which this barren summit has been reached. Take the +history of any civilized state,--England, France, Spain before she rotted +back into second childhood, the Italian Republics, the Greek +Commonwealths, the Empress of the Seven Hills--what struggles, what +persecutions, what crimes, what massacres! Where, in the page of +history, shall we look back and say, 'Here improvement has diminished the +sum of evil'? Extend, too, your scope beyond the State itself: each +State has won its acquisitions by the woes of others. Spain springs +above the Old World on the blood-stained ruins of the New; and the groans +and the gold of Mexico produce the splendours of the Fifth Charles! + +"Behold England, the wise, the liberal, the free England--through what +struggles she has passed; and is she yet contented? The sullen oligarchy +of the Normans; our own criminal invasions of Scotland and France; the +plundered people, the butchered kings; the persecutions of the Lollards; +the wars of Lancaster and York; the new dynasty of the Tudors, that at +once put back Liberty, and put forward Civilization! the Reformation, +cradled in the lap of a hideous despot, and nursed by violence and +rapine; the stakes and fires of Mary, and the craftier cruelties of +Elizabeth,--England, strengthened by the desolation of Ireland, the Civil +Wars, the reign of hypocrisy, followed by the reign of naked vice; the +nation that beheaded the graceful Charles gaping idly on the scaffold of +the lofty Sidney; the vain Revolution of 1688, which, if a jubilee in +England, was a massacre in Ireland; the bootless glories of Marlborough; +the organized corruption of Walpole, the frantic war with our own +American sons, the exhausting struggles with Napoleon! + +"Well, we close the page; we say, Lo! a thousand years of incessant +struggles and afflictions! millions have perished, but Art has survived; +our boors wear stockings, our women drink tea, our poets read Shakspeare, +and our astronomers improve on Newton! Are we now contented? No! more +restless than ever. New classes are called into power; new forms of +government insisted on. Still the same catchwords,--Liberty here, +Religion there; Order with one faction, Amelioration with the other. +Where is the goal, and what have we gained? Books are written, silks are +woven, palaces are built,--mighty acquisitions for the few--but the +peasant is a peasant still! The crowd are yet at the bottom of the +wheel; better off, you say. No, for they are not more contented! The +artisan is as anxious for change as ever the serf was; and the +steam-engine has its victims as well as the sword. + +"Talk of legislation: all isolated laws pave the way to wholesale changes +in the form of government! Emancipate Catholics, and you open the door +to democratic principle, that Opinion should be free. If free with the +sectarian, it should be free with the elector. The Ballot is a corollary +from the Catholic Relief-bill. Grant the Ballot, and the new corollary +of enlarged suffrage. Suffrage enlarged is divided but by a yielding +surface (a circle widening in the waters) from universal suffrage. +Universal suffrage is Democracy. Is Democracy better than the +aristocratic commonwealth? Look at the Greeks, who knew both forms; are +they agreed which is the best? Plato, Thucydides, Xenophon, +Aristophanes--the Dreamer, the Historian, the Philosophic Man of Action, +the penetrating Wit--have no ideals in Democracy. Algernon Sidney, the +martyr of liberty, allows no government to the multitude. Brutus died +for a republic, but a republic of Patricians! What form of government is +then the best? All dispute, the wisest cannot agree. The many still say +'a Republic;' yet, as you yourself will allow, Prussia, the Despotism, +does all that Republics do. Yes, but a good despot is a lucky accident; +true, but a just and benevolent Republic is as yet a monster equally +short-lived. When the People have no other tyrant, their own public +opinion becomes one. No secret espionage is more intolerable to a free +spirit than the broad glare of the American eye. + +"A rural republic is but a patriarchal tribe--no emulation, no glory; +peace and stagnation. What Englishman, what Frenchman, would wish to be +a Swiss? A commercial republic is but an admirable machine for making +money. Is man created for nothing nobler than freighting ships and +speculating on silk and sugar? In fact, there is no certain goal in +legislation; we go on colonizing Utopia, and fighting phantoms in the +clouds. Let us content ourselves with injuring no man, and doing good +only in our own little sphere. Let us leave States and senates to fill +the sieve of the Danaides, and roll up the stone of Sisyphus." + +"My dear friend," said De Montaigne, "you have certainly made the most of +an argument, which, if granted, would consign government to fools and +knaves, and plunge the communities of mankind into the Slough of Despond. +But a very commonplace view of the question might suffice to shake your +system. Is life, mere animal life, on the whole, a curse or a blessing?" + +"The generality of men in all countries," answered Maltravers, "enjoy +existence, and apprehend death; were it otherwise, the world had been +made by a Fiend, and not a God!" + +"Well, then, observe how the progress of society cheats the grave! In +great cities, where the effect of civilization must be the most visible, +the diminution of mortality in a corresponding ratio with the increase of +civilization is most remarkable. In Berlin, from the year 1747 to 1755, +the annual mortality was as one to twenty-eight; but from 1816 to 1822, +it was as one to thirty-four! You ask what England has gained by her +progress in the arts? I will answer you by her bills of mortality. In +London, Birmingham, and Liverpool, deaths have decreased in less than a +century from one to twenty, to one to forty (precisely one-half!). +Again, whenever a community--nay, a single city, decreases in +civilization, and in its concomitants, activity and commerce, its +mortality instantly increases. But if civilization be favourable to the +prolongation of life, must it not be favourable to all that blesses +life,--to bodily health, to mental cheerfulness, to the capacities for +enjoyment? And how much more grand, how much more sublime, becomes the +prospect of gain, if we reflect that, to each life thus called forth, +there is a soul, a destiny beyond the grave, multiplied immortalities! +What an apology for the continued progress of States! But you say that, +however we advance, we continue impatient and dissatisfied: can you +really suppose that, because man in every state is discontented with his +lot, there is no difference in the _degree_ and _quality_ of his +discontent, no distinction between pining for bread and longing for the +moon? Desire is implanted within us, as the very principle of existence; +the physical desire fills the world, and the moral desire improves it. +Where there is desire, there must be discontent: if we are satisfied with +all things, desire is extinct. But a certain degree of discontent is not +incompatible with happiness, nay, it has happiness of its own; what +happiness like hope,--what is hope but desire? The European serf, whose +seigneur could command his life, or insist as a right on the chastity of +his daughter, desires to better his condition. God has compassion on his +state; Providence calls into action the ambition of leaders, the contests +of faction, the movement of men's aims and passions: a change passes +through society and legislation, and the serf becomes free! He desires +still, but what? No longer personal security, no longer the privileges +of life and health; but higher wages, greater comforts, easier justice +for diminished wrongs. Is there no difference in the quality of that +desire? Was one a greater torment than the other is? Rise a scale +higher: a new class is created--the Middle Class,--the express creature +of Civilization. Behold the burgher and the citizen, and still +struggling, still contending, still desiring, and therefore still +discontented. But the discontent does not prey upon the springs of life: +it is the discontent of _hope_, not _despair_; it calls forth faculties, +energies, and passions, in which there is more joy than sorrow. It is +this desire which makes the citizen in private life an anxious father, a +careful master, an _active_, and therefore not an unhappy, man. You +allow that individuals can effect individual good: this very +restlessness, this very discontent with the exact place that he occupies, +makes the citizen a benefactor in his narrow circle. Commerce, better +than Charity, feeds the hungry and clothes the naked. Ambition, better +than brute affection, gives education to our children, and teaches them +the love of industry, the pride of independence, the respect for others +and themselves! + +"In other words, a deference to such qualities as can best fit them to +get on in the world, and make the most money!" + +"Take that view if you will; but the wiser, the more civilized the State, +the worse chances for the rogue to get on! There may be some art, some +hypocrisy, some avarice,--nay, some hardness of heart,--in paternal +example and professional tuition. But what are such sober infirmities to +the vices that arise from defiance and despair? Your savage has his +virtues, but they are mostly physical,--fortitude, abstinence, patience: +mental and moral virtues must be numerous or few, in proportion to the +range of ideas and the exigencies of social life. With the savage, +therefore, they must be fewer than with civilized men; and they are +consequently limited to those simple and rude elements which the safety +of his state renders necessary to him. He is usually hospitable; +sometimes honest. But vices are necessary to his existence as well as +virtues: he is at war with a tribe that may destroy his own; and +treachery without scruple, cruelty without remorse, are essential to him; +he feels their necessity, and calls them _virtues_! Even the +half-civilized man, the Arab whom you praise, imagines he has a necessity +for your money; and his robberies become virtues to him. But in +civilized States, vices are at least not necessary to the existence of +the majority; they are not, therefore, worshipped as virtues. Society +unites against them; treachery, robbery, massacre, are not essential to +the strength or safety of the community: they exist, it is true, but they +are not cultivated, but punished. The thief in St. Giles's has the +virtues of your savage: he is true to his companions, he is brave in +danger, he is patient in privation; he practises the virtues necessary to +the bonds of his calling and the tacit laws of his vocation. He might +have made an admirable savage: but surely the mass of civilized men are +better than the thief?" + +Maltravers was struck, and paused a little before he replied; and then he +shifted his ground. "But at least all our laws, all our efforts, must +leave the multitude in every State condemned to a labour that deadens +intellect, and a poverty that embitters life." + +"Supposing this were true, still there are multitudes besides _the_ +multitude. In each State Civilization produces a middle class, more +numerous to-day than the whole peasantry of a thousand years ago. Would +Movement and Progress be without their divine uses, even if they limited +their effect to the production of such a class? Look also to the effect +of art, and refinement, and just laws, in the wealthier and higher +classes. See how their very habits of life tend to increase the sum of +enjoyment; see the mighty activity that their very luxury, the very +frivolity of their pursuits, create! Without an aristocracy, would there +have been a middle class? Without a middle class, would there ever have +been an interposition between lord and slave? Before commerce produces a +middle class, Religion creates one. The Priesthood, whatever its errors, +was the curb to Power. But, to return to the multitude,--you say that in +all times they are left the same. Is it so? I come to statistics again: +I find that not only civilization, but liberty, has a prodigious effect +upon human life. It is, as it were, by the instinct of self-preservation +that liberty is so passionately desired by the multitude. A negro slave, +for instance, dies annually as one to five or six, but a free African in +the English service only as one to thirty-five! Freedom is not, +therefore, a mere abstract dream, a beautiful name, a Platonic +aspiration: it is interwoven with the most practical of all +blessings,--life itself! And can you say fairly that by laws labour +cannot be lightened and poverty diminished? We have granted already that +since there are degrees in discontent, there is a difference between the +peasant and the serf: how know you what the peasant a thousand years +hence may be? Discontented, you will say,--still discontented. Yes; but +if he had not been discontented, he would have been a serf still! Far +from quelling this desire to better himself, we ought to hail it as the +source of his perpetual progress. That desire to him is often like +imagination to the poet, it transports him into the Future-- + + 'Crura sonant ferro, sed canit inter opus.' + +It is, indeed, the gradual transformation from the desire of Despair to +the desire of Hope, that makes the difference between man and man, +between misery and bliss." + +"And then comes the crisis. Hope ripens into deeds; the stormy +revolution, perhaps the armed despotism; the relapse into the second +infancy of States!" + +"Can we, with new agencies at our command, new morality, new wisdom, +predicate of the Future by the Past? In ancient States, the mass were +slaves; civilization and freedom rested with oligarchies; in Athens +twenty thousand citizens, four hundred thousand slaves! How easy +decline, degeneracy, overthrow in such States,--a handful of soldiers and +philosophers without a People! Now we have no longer barriers to the +circulation of the blood of States. The absence of slavery, the +existence of the Press; the healthful proportions of kingdoms, neither +too confined nor too vast, have created new hopes, which history cannot +destroy. As a proof, look to all late revolutions: in England the Civil +Wars, the Reformation,--in France her awful Saturnalia, her military +despotism! Has either nation fallen back? The deluge passes, and, +behold, the face of things more glorious than before! Compare the French +of to-day with the French of the old _regime_. You are silent; well, and +if in all States there is ever some danger of evil in their activity, is +that a reason why you are to lie down inactive; why you are to leave the +crew to battle for the helm? How much may individuals by the diffusion +of their own thoughts in letters or in action regulate the order of vast +events,--now prevent, now soften, now animate, now guide! And is a man +to whom Providence and Fortune have imparted such prerogatives to stand +aloof, because he can neither foresee the Future nor create Perfection? +And you talk of no certain and definite goal! How know we that there is +a certain and definite goal, even in heaven? How know we that excellence +may not be illimitable? Enough that we improve, that we proceed. Seeing +in the great design of earth that benevolence is an attribute of the +Designer, let us leave the rest to Posterity and to God." + +"You have disturbed many of my theories," said Maltravers, candidly; "and +I will reflect on our conversation; but, after all, is every man to +aspire to influence others; to throw his opinion into the great scales in +which human destinies are weighed? Private life is not criminal. It is +no virtue to write a book, or to make a speech. Perhaps, I should be as +well engaged in returning to my country village, looking at my schools, +and wrangling with the parish overseers--" + +"Ah," interrupted the Frenchman, laughing; "if I have driven you to this +point, I will go no further. Every state of life has its duties; every +man must be himself the judge of what he is most fit for. It is quite +enough that he desires to be active, and labours to be useful; that he +acknowledges the precept, 'Never to be weary in well-doing.' The divine +appetite once fostered, let it select its own food. But the man who, +after fair trial of his capacities, and with all opportunity for their +full development before him, is convinced that he has faculties which +private life cannot wholly absorb, must not repine that Human Nature is +not perfect, when he refuses even to exercise the gifts he himself +possesses." + +Now these arguments have been very tedious; in some places they have been +old and trite; in others they may appear too much to appertain to the +abstract theory of first principles. Yet from such arguments, _pro_ and +_con_, unless I greatly mistake, are to be derived corollaries equally +practical and sublime,--the virtue of Action, the obligations of Genius, +and the philosophy that teaches us to confide in the destinies, and +labour in the service, of mankind. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + I'LL tell you presently her very picture; + Stay--yes, it is so--Lelia. + _The Captain_, Act V. sc. I. + +MALTRAVERS had not shrunk into a system of false philosophy from wayward +and sickly dreams, from resolute self-delusion; on the contrary, his +errors rested on his convictions: the convictions disturbed, the errors +were rudely shaken. + +But when his mind began restlessly to turn once more towards the duties +of active life; when he recalled all the former drudgeries and toils of +political conflict, or the wearing fatigues of literature, with its small +enmities, its false friendships, and its meagre and capricious +rewards,--ah, then, indeed, he shrank in dismay from the thoughts of the +solitude at home! No lips to console in dejection, no heart to +sympathize in triumph, no love within to counterbalance the hate +without,--and the best of man, his household affections, left to wither +away, or to waste themselves on ideal images, or melancholy remembrance. + +It may, indeed, be generally remarked (contrary to a common notion), that +the men who are most happy at home are the most active abroad. The +animal spirits are necessary to healthful action; and dejection and the +sense of solitude will turn the stoutest into dreamers. The hermit is +the antipodes of the citizen; and no gods animate and inspire us like the +Lares. + +One evening, after an absence from Paris of nearly a fortnight, at De +Montaigne's villa, in the neighbourhood of St. Cloud, Maltravers, who, +though he no longer practised the art, was not less fond than heretofore +of music, was seated in Madame de Ventadour's box at the Italian Opera; +and Valerie, who was above all the woman's jealousy of beauty, was +expatiating with great warmth of eulogium upon the charms of a young +English lady whom she had met at Lady G-----'s the preceding evening. + +"She is just my beau-ideal of the true English beauty," said Valerie: "it +is not only the exquisite fairness of the complexion, nor the eyes so +purely blue,--which the dark lashes relieve from the coldness common to +the light eyes of the Scotch and German,--that are so beautifully +national, but the simplicity of manner, the unconsciousness of +admiration, the mingled modesty and sense of the expression. No, I have +seen women more beautiful, but I never saw one more lovely: you are +silent; I expected some burst of patriotism in return for my compliment +to your countrywoman!" + +"But I am so absorbed in that wonderful Pasta--" + +"You are no such thing; your thoughts are far away. But can you tell me +anything about my fair stranger and her friends? In the first place, +there is a Lord Doltimore, whom I knew before--you need say nothing about +him; in the next there is his new married bride, handsome, dark--but you +are not well!" + +"It was the draught from the door; go on, I beseech you, the young lady, +the friend, her name?" + +"Her name I do not remember; but she was engaged to be married to one of +your statesmen, Lord Vargrave; the marriage is broken off--I know not if +that be the cause of a certain melancholy in her countenance,--a +melancholy I am sure not natural to its Hebe-like expression. But who +have just entered the opposite box? Ah, Mr. Maltravers, do look, there +is the beautiful English girl!" + +And Maltravers raised his eyes, and once more beheld the countenance of +Evelyn Cameron! + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ALICE BY LYTTON, BOOK VI *** +By Edward Bulwer Lytton + +******* This file should be named 9768.txt or 9768.zip ******* + +Produced by Dagny; and by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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